Variety reports that Saoirse Ronan will soon star for Kevin Macdonald in How I Live Now, an adaptation of the Meg Rosoff novel that the Irish helmer has been planning for several months. Heat began to generate on the thing in October, with writers Jack Thorne, Jeremy Brock, and Terry Gilliam co-conspirator Tony Grisoni all working on the script; now, things look truly serious.

Like the book, the film centers on “Daisy, a teenage girl from New York City who travels to England to spend the summer with family in the English countryside.” With World War III starting and insurgents invading, “Daisy and a younger girl named Piper must survive alone in the woods as they try to make it to safety.”

You’ve surely guessed by now, but I’ll just say that Ronan will be playing our lead character, Daisy. Kind of funny (and backward) that they’d cast an Irish actress to play an American who travels to England. (I only said “kind of” funny.) Regardless of nationality, character, or the fact that she was partially responsible for letting Hanna get made, I hold great respect for Ronan as an actress; there are few-to-no performers her age who I’d be more willing to see lead a film, as it were. Macdonald isn’t half-bad in his own right, too, which means that How I Live Now already has the pairing of strong director and capable star this early on.

Here’s a longer synopsis of the book (via Amazon):

“Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy.

As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it’s a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy’s uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way.”

Are you interested in seeing Ronan star for Macdonald?